Louise’s heart pounded as she pushed her way to the front of the crowd. All around her people chanted and yelled. It was difficult to make out their exact words but she got the gist.  She wasn’t welcome there. 

Every instinct told her to turn around and go home but she forced herself to move forward, towards the barrier that held the crowd back from Nelson Tower. The police had formed a semi circle around the security check point, she could see that now that she was getting closer. 

All she had to do was get to the check point.

Her legs felt heavy as she elbowed her way past the protesters. She felt someone grab onto her arm but she shook them off and moved faster towards her goal. 

She paused when she reached the barrier.

They would know. As soon as she passed through the barrier they would know that she wasn’t one of them, that she wasn’t there to protest. 

The crowd throbbed, a roar of noise and movement as she was pushed against the barrier.

“Get them out,” the people around her chanted. 

“London is a human city!” A voice close by yelled.

She took her identification from her pocket and handed it to one of the police officers.

There was no going back. It wouldn’t take long for the crowd to realise she was one of the people they were protesting against. 

The police officer looked quickly over her ID, up at her and then back down again before he pulled aside the barrier and allowed her out. The crowd behind her tried to follow but the police officers held them back.

She hurried to the check point, her breath coming short and shallow. 

“Traitor,” she heard someone shout from behind. And then a chorus of people chanting the same.

She scanned her ID and pressed her finger to the scanner. She looked up at the camera and then waited for the door to open.

“Freak!” The crowd began to chant.

She looked back to see what had provoked the change. A tall woman with skin so pale it was almost translucent sauntered towards her, her hips swaying as she moved gracefully towards the check point. Senna. 

Senna lifted her hand and raised the middle finger towards the crowd.

“Go in,” she told Louise. “The door’s open.”

Louise turned and realised that Senna was right. She hurried into the little room and watched as the door closed behind her. 

At least she could walk the rest of the way with Senna. Nothing ever seemed to faze her colleague. Not even a crowd of hostile humans. 

The other side of the check point was open. Louise assumed, from the way that the crowd had left a clear path from the security check point to the door of the main building, that there was an invisible barrier there. 

Senna stepped inside a moment later and grinned at her.

“Nice welcome to the new building,” she said. 

Louise tried to smile back but couldn’t quite force her lips to turn upwards.

“Come on,” Senna said kindly. “It’s not far to the building and once we’re inside you’ll be fine.”

Senna began to walk and Louise followed. The crowd had been relatively quiet until they noticed the two women walking towards the building. They began to chant something that was muffled by the barrier. Bottles bounced off of the barrier, back towards the people who had thrown them.

“Idiot humans,” Senna muttered. 

“I’m human,” Louise replied.

“But not an idiot.”

Senna turned towards the crowd and hissed, baring her tiny fangs. Some people in the crowd jumped and Senna laughed.

“We’re supposed to keep a low profile,” Louise reminded her.

“I think our low profile has already been blown. Besides, Declan stopped to pose for photos with the press. He was on the breakfast news.”

She should have woken up earlier and watched the news. She would’ve stayed home if she’d known what waited for her at the office.

Finally they reached the door of the building. Another scan of their ID and the door opened. 

“Ladies, bags on the escalator, empty your pockets into the box and then please step through the security scanner,” the huge security guard said.

Louise stared at up at him. She had never seen anyone like him. He was at least seven foot tall with horns curling up from his forehead. 

The security scanner took her through to reception. A moment later a petite female with jet black hair and vivid blue eyes handed her her bag.

Surely they didn’t have to go through security every day. 

Louise looked around the room. The circular desk in the middle was what immediately draw her attention. Four people sat behind the desk wearing matching blazers. Their computer screens hovered in front of them as they tapped away on their keyboards. Louise walked towards the desk. She may as well find out where they were going while she waited for Senna.

As she approached, one of the receptionists lowered the computer screen and smiled at her.

“Good morning,” he said. “How can I help you?”

“Can you tell me where the offices for Barca Gualdo are located please?”

He raised the computer screen again and typed something on his keyboard.

“Floor six, suite 612. We should have the floor plans up by the end of the week. Any of the lifts can take you there.”

“Thanks.”

She went back to the entrance to wait for Senna.

What was taking her so long? Had she come through already and gone up to their office? No. She wouldn’t know where it was. She would give her a few more minutes.

She took a look around the room. No sign of her. There was no sign of anyone except the receptionists, which wasn’t a surprise when you had to fight your way through an angry mob to get to work. 

Eventually Senna stepped through the door. Her pale skin was flushed and matched the red of her eyes. Red eyes in a vampire meant anger. 

“Everything okay?” Louise asked.

“They took away my knives. Let’s find out where we’re going so I can take this up with Delvina.” 

Senna started to move towards the reception desk.

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

“Room 612, sixth floor.”

Senna changed her direction but that was the only sign that she had heard. 

“They can’t just confiscate my weapons. I need them to do my job. Who can take down dangerous criminals with their bare hands?”

“That man at security,” Louise guessed as they stepped into the lift. “What the hell was he?”

“He’s a fomorian. You can tell by the height and the horns. They must be paying a fortune for fomorian security.”

When Senna made eye contact with her again, her eyes had dulled to their usual brown. 

“Well, I’m glad to have him here. Makes me feel a little safer,” Louise said as they exited the lift and walked the short distance to their office.

“You don’t need him to keep you safe,” Senna said. “Barca Gualdo is all the protection you need.”

***

Theena paced inside the entrance of the building, glaring occasionally at the little female security guard. 

No one in, no one out, she’d told Theena when she’d gone to reclaim the weapons they’d confiscated and get the hell out of there. 

Delvina, her boss, had told them to stay put but she wasn’t in the mood to sit around in the office, waiting for Delvina to give them instructions. Besides, she was suspended from bounty hunting and she didn’t intend to catch up on her paperwork, as Milo, her other boss, had suggested, while she waited to be back on duty. After the last incident she’d filled out enough forms to last the rest of her career.

She missed the days before all the fucking regulations. The days when they would have been sent out there to disperse the crowd and show them who was in charge, instead of being told to sit tight and wait for the humans to deal with their own shit. 

“You can’t stop us from leaving,” Theena yelled out to the security guard.

The security guard smirked her way. “Want to try me, amazon?”

Maybe if she made enough noise she could incite a riot. Who was she kidding? The building was full of pen pushers. The most they would do was write a strongly worded letter or instruct their solicitors. 

She wondered if Aphria, the only other amazon in London, had made it in yet? The only upside to relocating to London was that she would be in the same building as one of her fellow amazons. 

“Can you tell me where I can find Warder and Partners solicitors?” She asked one of the receptionists.

The woman, human by the look of her, gave an irritated sigh. “Suite 901.”

Theena caught the lift as the doors began to close. 

“What floor do you want?” the man in the lift asked. 

“Nine.” She looked to the panel and saw that it was already pressed.

“I’m Ben,” the male said with a smile.

“Okay.”

“You’re not going to give me your name?” His voice was smooth. He had a British accent with a hint of something else.

“No.”

She gave Ben the look, the one that usually had amazon men backing away or falling at her feet in submission. This man wasn’t an amazon. He was taller than her with short dark hair and warm brown eyes. He wore a suit and horn rimmed glasses. If it wasn’t for the circular markings on his neck, he would pass for human. That was why his accent seemed different. He was a Guardian of the Isles. They were British but they rarely spent time on the main land, living instead of the ships that surrounded the British Isles and Ireland and protected them from invasion. 

Ben smiled at her. 

She turned her back on him. 

“In my culture, turning your back on a male indicates a desire to be chased and dominated.”

Her nostrils flared in anger at the mere suggestion that she, an amazon warrior, would submit to him, a man. 

She looked over her shoulder at him. “In my culture it indicates that the male should know his place and wait to be addressed.”

He took one step closer to her. “And where is my place?”

The lift came to a stop, the doors sliding open. 

“Away from me,” Theena said as she walked out of the lift. She scanned the sign in front of her, looking for room 901. She turned right and walked quickly down the corridor. Ben caught up to her and walked beside her.

“If you're going to follow me,” Theena said. “At least walk a few paces behind me.”

“You think my place is behind you?” He sounded amused and that made Theena’s bad mood worse.

“Or at my feet.”

“We’re making progress. Back at the lift my place was away from you, now you want me at your feet. From an amazon, I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“Take it anyway you want.”

Ben smirked. “If I only I was submissive.”

If only Theena was dominant. Theena pushed away the unwelcome thought as she reached her destination. She pushed the door open and walked into a small reception area. She was surprised when Ben followed her in.

“What are you doing?” She frowned at him.

“Coming into my office.”

“Your office?” 

“I’m the Warder in Warder and Partners.” Theena was getting sick of his smirk. “So what are you doing in my office?  If it’s legal advice you're after, I'm sure we could work something out.”

Theena let out an indignant but not altogether elegant huff. “I would rather go to prison than take legal advice from you, you arrogant man.”

“It's that bad? What did you do?”

“I don't need legal advice. I'm here to see a friend.”

“I'm surprised to hear that you have one.”

“I have plenty of friends, thank you Mr Warder.”

“Ben please. Or if you insist on formalities, Dr Warder.”

“Oh fuck off Dr Warder. And tell Aphria that I came to see her but had to leave because I was being sexually harassed by her boss. What's your legal advice on sexual harassment Dr Warder?”

Ben laughed. “You are stunning, you know that?”

Theena felt her fists clench. She turned away from Ben and hurried out of the room. Her heart was beating ten times faster than usual and she felt breathless. She needed to stay away from him. 

***

Jayden carried the tray over to the table where his wife sat with her new friend. Janna had talked non-stop about Diana ever since she had met the other doctor at her interview. They'd exchanged emails and chatted on the phone and Janna had told him about every single conversation. 

He felt like he knew Diana as well as she did. 

There was no doubt about it, his wife was smitten. 

He placed the tray on the table. Diana gave him a shy smile as she thanked him for the coffee, her gaze not quite meeting his. Her cheeks were slightly flushed. She looked adorable. She was nothing like Janna. Janna was tall, slim and pale. Diana couldn’t be taller than five foot five and she was curvy with olive skin and the darkest eyes he’d ever seen on a human. Janna was loud and confident, Diana couldn't even seem to make eye contact with him and she blushed every time he spoke to her. 

“We were just talking about the protests,” Janna told him.

He wished he hadn't come to work that morning. Or rather that Janna hadn't. He had known that something would happen. The humans weren't happy that their city had been opened up to other races and there were plenty of other groups who didn't like it either. 

“I knew there would be protests,” Diana said quietly. “I just didn't realise how big it would be. There are hundreds of people out there.”

Janna reached across the table and squeezed her hand gently before letting go. “Don't worry about it. It's just a protest, this happens every time a city is opened. Have you ever seen the footage from the protests in Glasgow? People literally rioted.”

Diana paled.

“Janna, I don't think that's helping,” Jayden said sternly.

“All I'm saying is that ten years ago there were riots in Glasgow and now it's one of the most integrated cities in the country.”

“So I should come back to London in a decade?” Diana joked but her smile looked forced.

“Listen Diana,” Jayden said. “This is nothing like on the scale that Glasgow opened to non-humans. London has been open to non-human tourists since the 70s and under the new laws it's so difficult to get a license that the only non-humans who will be in the city are those who are needed to protect and help the humans. This is nothing like the scale of the changes in Glasgow so I'm sure the protests will be a lot smaller.”

He wasn't sure of that at all. 

If he knew one thing, it was that people, human or otherwise, were liable to act without thinking when they were scared. There was no reasoning with a bigot and that's what most of those people were. It didn't matter that there had been non-humans living in the city for centuries, most of them perfectly law abiding (save for not being human). It didn't matter that the humans couldn't manage the threat from the minority of non-humans who were hostile and that they needed services like those provided by Barca Gualdo. Most of them were scared, a few of them full of hate. 

Janna snorted. “I hardly think that those protestors are thinking that logically.”

“Diana, would you excuse my wife and me for a moment please. We’ll be back shortly.”

Jayden stood and held out a hand to his wife. She took it and followed him out of the cafeteria. When they got outside he turned to look at her, not letting go of her hand.

“What's wrong?” She asked, her eyes wide.

“That woman is scared and you are not helping.”

“I'm being honest. She's not stupid, you know.”

“I know that but right now what she needs is reassurance, not honesty.”

“I would want the truth.”

“She isn't you and we are not discussing this. I’m telling you that you are not to say anything that will scare her about this situation, do you understand?”

“I understand but I don't agree,” she pouted. 

“Understand this pet. I'm the dom in this relationship and if you keep saying things that scare her, I will take you up to the office and spank you. And you will not enjoy it.”

“I didn't mean to scare her. I just think we can't ignore the protests when they're right outside of our building.”

“How about we take our coffees and go down to the office? You'll both feel safer there.”

“I feel safe here, with you.”

Jayden leaned down and placed a kiss on his wife's lips.

“I love you pet.”

Her smile was radiant as she smiled up at him. “I love you too, sir.”

“Let's go and play vanilla so that we don't scare her away.”

“I don't think vanilla people play,” she muttered as he lead her back into the cafeteria and to Diana.

“Diana,” he said when they reached her. She looked up at and met his eyes for the first time. He smiled at her, pleased that she had made eye contact. The heat rose in her cheeks but she didn't look away. “We're going to take the coffee and go to my office.”

“Oh.” She looked down, breaking the eye contact. “It was nice meeting you.”

“I meant the three of us,” he clarified. “I think you'll feel safer there.”

She looked back up at him. “Oh, right. Okay. Now?”

He smiled at her and resisted the urge to hold out his free hand to her. 

His wife had been right when she'd said that she'd found the perfect woman for them.